Para-Anthropo(s)cene Aesthetics Between Despair and Beauty

A Matter of Response-Ability

Authors

  • Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen Stockholm University; University of Lodz
  • Daria Skjoldager-Nielsen University of Lodz; Stockholm University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/nts.v32i1.120407

Keywords:

Anthropocene, Climate change, Aesthetics, Performativity, Dystopia, Utopia

Abstract

The Anthropocene is gaining recognition as an epoch in Earth’s history in which mankind is changing the environment and the biosphere (Steffen et.al. 2011). Hotel Pro Forma’s visual opera NeoArctic (2016) and Yggdrasil Dance’s dance meditation Siku Aapoq/ Melting Ice (2015) explore how to aesthetically shape the ecological impact on human existence. The article discusses the performances’ impact on potential responses to the climate crisis.

In NeoArctic, human activities have caused “overflow feedback”: a constant flow of digital vistas of pollution, raging weather, temperature rises alternate with the planet’s eternal processes, while underscored by ambience and operatic electro-pop. The images are front-projected onto the stage backdrop to create a literal overflow of the steadfast choir-performers, in which they almost disappear or become ghostly shadows, implying their imminent demise or insignificance on a planetary scale.

Siku Aapoq engages with Greenland’s melting icecap: two dancers, Norwegian and Inuit, interact with a fabric understood as the melting ice, while enveloped in evocative lights, the crackling of glaciers, Inuit chants, ambience, and jazz. The Norwegian and the Inuit take turns enacting the ice, suggesting the interconnectedness with nature of both cultures.

Both performances seem to invite acceptance of inevitable disaster. Yet, human prevalence is implied in the stagings by convergence of past and future in the present, which suggests that the future is still undecided, and survival depends on an ability to respond to the materiality of the environment that we are already entangled in through a profound sense of beauty.

Theoretically, the analyses mainly draw on agential realism (Karen Barad) in order to outline a “para-Anthropo(s)cene aesthetics” that may reach beyond the human and engage spectators in realizing their ethical entanglement and the call for climate action. Considering intentions and reception, and the dystopian nature of the performances, the responses to climate change that the aesthetics may instigate are discussed.

Author Biographies

Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen, Stockholm University; University of Lodz

Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen. PhD in theatre studies from Stockholm University. Lecturer at Stockholm University and adjunct at University of Lodz. Member of the Performance Studies international working group Performance and Science and the Performance Studies Space Programme. With the International Federation for Theatre Research elected ExComm member and cofounder of the working group Performance, Spirituality and Religion. Research interests: cosmo-aesthetics; science exposition; spirituality; ecology; contemporary staged events; ritual; performance art; intermediality; performance analysis; dramaturgy. Recent publications: with Daria Skjoldager-Nielsen, “Theatre, Science, and the Popular: Two Contemporary Examples from Scandinavia”, in Nordic Theatre Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2017; also with Daria Skjoldager-Nielsen, “Today’s Cake is a Log: Remediating the Intermediality of Hotel Pro Forma’s Works in an Exhibition” in Petersson, Sonya et al. 2018. The Power of the In-Between: Intermediality as a Tool for Aesthetic Analysis and Critical Reflection.

Daria Skjoldager-Nielsen, University of Lodz; Stockholm University

Daria S. Nielsen. Holder of two MA degrees from the University of Lodz in marketing and theatre studies. Lecturer at the University of Lodz. PhD candidate in theatre studies, Stockholm University. Member of the IFTR working group The Theatrical Event. Vicechairwoman of Rococo Foundation researching cultural institutions’ management and performance. Research interests: the theatrical event; new approaches to audience development, marketing and theatre; cultural policy. Recent publications: “Theatre Talks – Audience Development in Three Perspectives: Marketing, Cultural Policy and Theatrical Communication”, in Zarządzanie w kulturze 2019, Tom 20, Numer 3; with Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen, “Theatre, Science, and the Popular: Two Contemporary Examples from Scandinavia”, in Nordic Theatre Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2017.

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Published

2020-04-30

How to Cite

Skjoldager-Nielsen, K., & Skjoldager-Nielsen, D. (2020). Para-Anthropo(s)cene Aesthetics Between Despair and Beauty: A Matter of Response-Ability. Nordic Theatre Studies, 32(1), 44–65. https://doi.org/10.7146/nts.v32i1.120407

Issue

Vol. 32 No. 1 (2020): Theatre and the Anthropocene

Section

Articles thematic section

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